Hi everybody! First of all, belated congratulations to all my colleagues! International Translation Day this year was filled with all kinds of events, both online and offline, in different parts of the world. It is so great to belong to such a wonderful army of smart, beautiful and talented people! I wish you all a prosperous, busy, adventurous and successful year!

Another piece of good news is that my post "10 worst mistakes I made as a freelancer" won ProZ Community Choice Awards as the best post for freelance translators. Big thanks to everybody who voted for it!Today I'd like you to meet another special person and a great professional. Joseph Lambert is an experienced translator, whose specialty fields include sports, marketing, medical, as well as technical translation! He also runs a blog, which is a part of his website jaltranslation.com. So let's meet Joseph Lambert!

Hello everybody! It's time for a new interview in the Meet the Linguist series. Today I would like you to meet Fedor Kondratovich, a translator, interpreter and a head of Alba Longa Translation Company from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Though the company is fairly young, it is already one of the most reputable translation companies in Russia. Besides, they have been nominated for ProZ Community Choice Awards for their online translator training courses which are very popular among Russian translators. I have been working with Fedor since May and I had a chance to see that he practices what he preaches, i.e. shares in his interview. So let's start!

Hi everybody! How are you doing?Last time I promised to share a big summer recap post with you, so that's what I am going to do now. This summer turned out to be one of the most challenging summers in my life. At the same time, I was blessed beyond measure. That's why the title mentions bad things turning out for good. So let's start and I hope I won't scare you away :)

Hi there, good people :)I am happy to go on with my Meet the Linguist series and I would like you to meet Sergey Bessonov! Here's how Sergey describes himself: "Active, young and constantly developing interpreter and translator. New challenging projects are welcome". I had a chance to see the amount of energy and enthusiasm Sergey puts into his work during the three-week course for Russian translators I taught back in April. You can follow Sergey on Twitter (@sergeybessonov) or become his fan on Facebook. As usual, I asked Sergey to answer a few questions. Here are his replies:

Happy Sunday everybody! Have you noticed how quickly the summer is flying by? I can't believe it's August already. Very soon kids in Russia will start a new school year, and their freelancing parents will move to the normal crazy schedule built around school, after-class activities, sports clubs etc. Fun! ;)

It is also high time I shared some top tweets shared last month about translation, languages, marketing and freelancing! Just a little reminder: this list has nothing to do with my personal favorits. Every month I visit topsy.com and find the most trending tweets on the topics mentioned above. In other words, those are the tweets that get most retweets, favorits and mentions. And then I publish them in my blog. I preserve all hashtags, so you can go to Twitter, type the hashtag in the search field and see what other people publish on the same topic. I also preserve the names and Twitter handles of people who publish those tweets, so you could check out their profiles and fo…

I am still getting feedback from colleagues all over the world after publishing the post about 10 business mistakes I made as a startup freelance translator. And one of the things I hear a lot is that there aren't enough possibilities for beginners to build their portfolio and grow in their skills, because good clients want experienced translators. As a result, they have to make their rates as low as possible to get a project and thus gain some experience.

I strongly disagree with this practice, though I made this mistake, too, in the beginning. However, there's a chance for you now to start your career differently. True, you won't earn much at first. Nobody does anyway. But you will do work that matters. Besides, you can list this experience in your CV and LinkedIn profile.

The possibility I am talking about is volunteering for different non-profit organizations and projects in different parts of the world. I started cooperating with NGOs and donating my translation serv…

Fist of all, I am amazed at how popular my previous post became. There have been over 5000 views of it already. It has never happened to any of my posts before, which tells me that the article really struck the chord with my colleagues. We need to be honest and open about mistakes we make! That's how we can learn from one another! Thanks for all your comments here and in social networks. Your opinion and your experience matter!

One of my readers asked to render an account of the ways to remedy those mistakes. I think it's a great idea, and, besides my experience, I am also going to use the experience of my colleagues, shared publicly in their blogs or in comments to the previous post.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
Sir Winston Churchill If Sir Winston Churchill was right, then I should be very successful. We all make tons of mistakes. And I am not an exception. My mistakes nowadays may not be as big as they were at the beginning of my freelance career, but I still make them and do my best to learn from them. I also watch others make mistakes and I do my best to learn from them, too.

So here's the list of major mistakes in freelance business I made since 2007. Hope it helps other colleagues to learn and grow. And you are welcome to share the mistakes you made, so we can all learn from one another!

Hi everybody! Long time no see! I am so happy to be back with you and to be able to share the list of top tweets for May AND June 2014! For those who just started following my blog: once a month (sometimes once every two months) I go to the website http://topsy.com and make a list of most popular tweets about languages, translation, marketing and freelancing. Only the most shared tweets are included in the list. I also keep the original hashtags and the Twitter accounts of those who share those tweets so you can make your own search using those hashtags and follow accounts you find most interesting.

Hi there! Remember I promised to go on with my Meet the Linguist series? That's what I am going to do now! I am about to share an interview with an amazing lady who manages to combine full-time freelance translation from Italian and English into Russian with full-time ESL and ISL teaching! So meet Natallia Lupic from Grodno, Belarus! You can check Natallia's website. She also has a Twitter account and a Facebook page.As usual, I asked her a few questions and here are her replies. Enjoy :)

Hi everybody! I am so happy to see you again! Today is my happiest day in a loooooong time - the end of Delia's school year! Yay! Parents love summer vacations just as much as kids do :)

A few good things happened since we talked last:1. I had a webinar on ProZ about Google Plus and what it offers to us, translators. In spite of some unexpected sound problems everything went excellent!2. A few days before the webinar I was interviewed by Maria Kopnitsky about my experience as a translator, trainer and social media enthusiast. Here is the link. Hope you like the post.

Hi everybody! How've you been? It's high time I shared some interesting, useful and fun tweets with you about translation, languages, marketing and networking. All these tweets were published in April and according to Topsy.com they got the most shares, retweets and replies. I had a great time while looking through those links, reading the articles that I missed because it's simply impossible to see everything on Twitter! I hope these links will be as useful for you as they were for me. As usual, you can see the names and Twitter usernames of all people who shared them, as well as hashtags they used. So you can follow these great twitterers and/or type the same hashtag in Twitter and look for more cool tweets on the same topics!

Hi everybody! Happy Friday! It's a great honor for me to continue with the #followfriday tradition by recommending another great colleague and also a friend, Sarai Pahla. Sarai writes a brilliant blog. Besides, she once took part in my series about translation specialisation. Here you can learn more about how Sarai chose her specialty field.As usual, I asked Sarai some questions and here are her replies. Enjoy :)

If yes, then the last weekend of September would be a perfect time for that! The reason is Translation Forum Russia that is going to take place September 26th - 28th in Yekaterinburg. I have never been in that part of Russia, but I've been reading wonderful blogs of Olga Tkachenko for a few years now (here's the first one, and here's the second) and thanks to her posts I became greatly interested in Siberia and the Urals. It is not exactly a popular destination for a vacation here, so I really appreciate the chance to actally see it with my own eyes and meet my colleagues from Russia and other countries. Yes, you read right, there will be people from other countries, too! So save the dates in your calendar and let me know if you are coming, I'd love to see you there!

My dear readers, hello! I missed you so much! Sorry I disappeared again. I've enjoyed a very intense feast period in my work, plus Easter is coming, and my daughter's birthday falls on Easter this year! So I've been preparing a special holiday for her. But I am happy to be back with you and I am bringing a wonderful guest post by Konstantina Drakou about staying fit and healthy as a freelancer. I love Konstantina's way of keeping fit. Wonder how she does that? Then keep reading :)

Hi everybody!
I owe you something very important. As you know, every month I share an article with
the best tweets about translation, languages, marketing and freelancing. But I
didn’t publish top tweets for February, so I decided to cover two months in one
post. I strongly recommend you to check out those tweets. They are truly THE
best. I found some very interesting and useful information there. And if there’s a post or an article that inspired you in February and
March please share it in comments!

Hi everybody! How's your week been? Mine was surely interesting: I had a webinar for Russian-speaking translators, there were 2 birthdays in my family, plus there were a couple very interesting translation projects and a lot of requests from new clients and agencies. Hope at least a couple of them turn into new long-term relationships :)

It's Friday, so it's the time to recommend another colleague! Today I'd like to share the interview with Caroline Alberoni. Caroline once took part in my series about keeping healthy and fit as a freelancer. You can read her post here. I really enjoy reading Caroline's blog and her posts in social media and I appreciate this chance to get to know her better. So here's the interview. Enjoy :)

Hi everybody!I am so happy to be back with you. Your reaction to my yesterday's post was amazing. Big thanks to everybody who is praying for peace, too. I am truly blessed, having all your support!

As you know, Friday is that special day of the week when I recommend a great colleague. I am very happy to resume this tradition. And the person I am recommending today really deserves our attention. It's Magda Phili. I met Magda a while ago. She even wrote a guest post for my blog once. Her creativity and writing talent continue to amaze me. Have you checked out her blog called "which translates to"? It's a very young blog, but you will definitely love it. It is unique.

I asked Magda for an interview and she agreed! So I am happy to share a bit more about her with you:

Hi everybody! I am very sorry for being silent. I always say that you have to set your priorities right and have to treat your blog as a part of your business and then it will thrive. But I guess I just experienced something like a personal crisis.

It definitely had something to do with the latest political situation. Really, you have to be blind not to know about the news concerning Ukraine, Russia and the Crimea. I come from a multi-national family, so I have a lot of relatives in Ukraine, in the Crimea and I dearly love all of them. Being partly a Ukrainian, I love Russia where I grew up, and I love Ukraine. So this crisis is the time when I thought for the first time that speaking more than one language can be a curse... Because I could read the Russian articles, could understand some of what the Ukrainian authors wrote, and could surely read and understand the publications in the European and American mass media.... And it made me sick. This whole situation just makes my heart b…

Hello everybody! I am so happy to see you here!Remember I promised to continue the series about staying healthy and fit? Today I am publishing the story of Dorota Pawlak. Would you like to know more about Dorota's experience? Then read further ;-)

Happy Friday everybody!Yes, it's that special day of the week when I recommend a new colleague! And today I'd like to recommend Konstantina Drakou! She is one of those people whose dedication, hard work and vibrant personality make a lasting impression on everybody, including her colleagues and clients. Konstantina is in charge of Wordyrama Translations. You may follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook. In summer, Konstantina also took part in my blog series about specialisation. You can read her post here. Here are Konstantina's replies to my questions:

Dear readers,Thank you for the wonderful feedback about my first post about Winter Olympics glossaries! I am so happy you found it useful! However, in that article I covered only ice sports, so today we are going to speak about skiing, snowboarding, and nordic events.

First of all, I'd like to remind you about Sochi 2014 general glossary (English-Russian). You can find a lot of useful terms there. And if you need more extensive glossaries about specific sports, here are the best resources I could find for you.

Happy Friday!Today I am glad to recommend Suyash Suprabh, one of the best Hindi translators I know. I met Suyash back in 2010 when I was just starting blogging and networking in social media. You can connect with Suyash on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter. I have asked Suyash to share a bit about himself, and here are his replies.

Olympics is always a great time for me. I don't care about political issues, or doping scandals, or anything else. I just love watching great athletes compete. Many of them have to go through so different serious obstacles to even take part in the Games! Being a linguist, I can't help googling some terms I hear on TV just to make sure I get them right etc. So this week I decided to make up a list of useful links to resources and glossaries about winter Olympic sports.

Hello everybody! Hope you are having a great week. Mine is starting kind of tough,
but I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.As usual, I’ve
been preparing a new list of top tweeted content for the past month and I found a lot of interesting posts I missed! So this list is a huge help for me to stay on top of all the news concerning languages and translation. And as far as I know, it is helping at least some of you, too! In my previous post about best language and translation tweets I promised to add two new topics, so that’s what I am doing!
From now on, I will look for top tweets about language, translation, marketing and
freelancing. So, if your January was pretty busy and you haven’t been around
Twitter a lot, or if you simply don’t use Twitter, but like learning new
things, I recommend you to check out this list of top tweets in different
topics. There’s a chance that you will find something interesting and helpful
there.

Happy Saturday, dear readers!It's not Friday, so it's going to be a #follorsaturday recommendation of a fellow linguist. And what a great linguist! Her name is Olga Dyussengaliyeva, she lives in Kazakhstan and is an author of a wonderful blog "More than words" at http://mtw-blog.com/Olga recently invited me to take part in her new project which is a series of podcasts about different aspects of freelancing. We talked about pros and cons of being a freelancer. If you know Russian you can listen to the podcast on the side panel of her blog.Olga is also a real professional in using Wordfast, so she decided to help the colleagues who are just strting to use this TM-tool. You can download WFA Essentials right from her blog.

Olga recently participated in my other series about staying healthy and fit. You can read her post here. I also asked Olga to answer my questions. Here is the interview.

Back in November a colleague sent me a link to an article called "How to translate a Russian website to English?" The article was published on the website http://www.translationblog.co.uk/. The author of the article presumably is a specialist who oversees the Russian translations in that agency. I clicked the link again while preparing this post and realized that it's no longer working. So I am feeling relieved. Why? Because, as a professional translator, I couldn't agree with a big part of it. In fact, I was quite shocked by some of the things written there. And I immediately posted my reply to it in my Russian blog for any clients who are looking for a way to translate their websites from Russian to another language. I didn't have time to argue with the agency, so I tried to minimize the harm by talking directly to potential translation buyers. I meant to translate and post my reply here as well, but since I was pretty busy I am doing it only now. Part of me wi…

Hello from snowy Russia! Remember the #followfriday tradition on Twitter? I've been thinking that it would be great to do something similar on Facebook. From now on I will recommend one colleague each Friday on my Facebook business page. Last Friday was my first try and it went great :) I also felt that this tradition could continue in my blog. Catherine Christaki had the same idea and I am very thankful for the support of both Catherine and Tess Whitty. So, I am starting a new rubric called "Meet the linguist". Soon you will be able to see it among featured rubrics in the upper section of this blog.

Why am I starting the rubric? I have two goals:1. To inspire more networking among linguists.2. To help people who come across my blog to find a specialist they need.

Happy Monday! How are you doing? I am fighting a little head cold. Being in the middle of a large project, the last thing I want is to be sick. Which sets a good basis for sharing another guest post about staying healthy and fit as a freelancer :) This time, a great colleague and a young mother Emeline Jamoul is sharing her experience.

Hi! Great to see you in my blog again today :) Please meet a new guest author, Nina Lizunova from Romo Translations. Today we are going to speak about translation slip ups and snags.

It's complicatedTranslation is a technical task that requires hands-on skills. As a translator, you must possess strong command of syntax, phraseology and etymology of words to effectively translate them into their true meaning.In every translation project there are various difficult issues that arise and it normally differs from language to language. Here are a few problems I face as a Russian Linguist and Translator.

Hi everybody!How has your week been? Hope everything is great and you are ready to enjoy your weekend, be it a relaxing or a working one. I am going to share some news and a couple new personal discoveries with you.

Hi there!
How’ve you been? Hope you had great holidays! I sure did :) Because of all
these holidays December was a busy month, so when I sat down to prepare a list
of the best language and translation tweets I made quite a few discoveries! So
here they are.

Hi there! Happy New Year! Did you have relaxing holidays? I sure did. In fact, the holiday season is not over in Russia. We are going to celebrate Christmas in two days. I can't wait :)

On the 29th of December Carole Seawert from Freelance Factfile published my guest post where I shared my experience regarding health, fitness etc. It has been a fight, but hopefully I am going to win it :) Delia and I spent a day at the skating rink a couple days ago and I was very happy to notice almost no muscle ache afterwards. I am getting stronger again, yay!

I also promised to Carole that her post is going to be the first post I publish in 2014. So here it is! That's how Carole keeps healthy and fit. Enjoy :)